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CBS News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBS News
"Aftertaste" by Daria Lavelle voted the first book of summer for Club Calvi!
We may receive commissions from some links to products on this page. Promotions are subject to availability and retailer terms. Please consider joining our Facebook group by CLICKING HERE. Find out more about the books below. Club Calvi's new book explores the power of food to link life and afterlife Club Calvi has a new book! We asked you to decide on our next read and you voted "Aftertaste" as the Readers' Choice. In a message to readers, author Daria Lavelle said the book follows a chef whose food can bring spirits back from the afterlife for a last meal with their loved ones. He opens a New York City restaurant that serves closure. He doesn't expect to fall in love or to cause chaos in the afterlife in the process. You can read an excerpt and get the book below and read along with Club Calvi over the next four weeks. The CBS New York Book Club focuses on books connected to the Tri-State Area in their plots and/or authors. The books may contain adult themes. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ "Aftertaste" by Daria Lavelle Simon & Schuster From the publisher: Konstantin Duhovny is a haunted man. His father died when he was ten, and ghosts have been hovering around him ever since. Kostya can't exactly see the ghosts, but he can taste their favorite foods. Flavors of meals he's never eaten will flood his mouth, a sign that a spirit is present. Kostya has kept these aftertastes a secret for most of his life, but one night, he decides to act on what he's tasting. And everything changes. Kostya discovers that he can reunite people with their deceased loved ones—at least for the length of time it takes them to eat a dish that he's prepared. He thinks his life's purpose might be to offer closure to grieving strangers, and sets out to learn all he can by entering a particularly fiery ring of Hell: the New York culinary scene. But as his kitchen skills catch up with his ambitions, Kostya is too blind to see the catastrophe looming in the Afterlife. And the one person who knows Kostya must be stopped also happens to be falling in love with him. Daria Lavelle lives in New Jersey. "Aftertaste" By Daria Lavelle (ThriftBooks) $22 Excerpt: "Aftertaste" by Daria Lavelle BITTER The first time Konstantin Duhovny tasted something he hadn't actually eaten he was eleven, seated on the edge of the public pool in Brighton Beach, his heels churning grey water into foam. He was watching the backs of the other boys—the ones he was supposed to be swimming with, but who never invited him, even out of politeness, into their circle—as they splashed about, showing off handstands and lung capacities, spouting chlorinated water a foot into the air like porpoises. He watched them all afternoon—Mitya and Sasha and Misha K. and Misha B. (whom they kept calling Bear because of the thick, black hair up and down his back)—until, one by one, their fathers finished their waterlogged Russkaya Reklamas, scratched their nipples through threadbare white undershirts, and peeled their pasty bodies from the rubber loungers, signaling quitting time. Kostya had come chaperoned by his cousin Valerik—not his real cousin, but the teenage son of Tetya Natasha, not his real aunt but an acquaintance of his mother's—who had promptly dumped him when his girlfriend whispered something about a kissing booth at the boardwalk nearby. Don't you move, Valerik had hissed at Kostya. I'll be back. That had been two hours ago. As the last boy, Mitya, raised the handle of the chain-link fence, Kostya felt himself blister with jealousy. There was no one to ferry him home, just like there had been no one to slather sunblock onto his back—which he could already feel was red and tight and burnt—and just like there would be no one to teach him how to talk to these boys in a way that made it clear that he was one of them. But then, of course, he wasn't one of them. Their fathers were alive. He kicked faster at the water, kicked violently, kicked at the fathers and sons, kicked at the great cavity of longing inside himself, this way of missing someone, missing them desperately, missing every part including those he'd never known, a pocket so deep he thought that if he could only reach inside of it, worry its lining long enough, break through it to the other side, to where empty could grow full as a belly round with food, he might just find what he was looking for. Right then, something traveled across his tongue, and Kostya stopped kicking. It coated the inside of his mouth, thick as paste, the taste—the uneaten taste—overpowering. It was savory, salty, the texture mealy, slightly sweet and fatty, something tart, barely, and then, at the tail, in the back of his throat, bitter, bitter, blooming like a bruise. Good, but also bad, just a little bit like s***. He wondered briefly whether one of the boys had found a way to make him ingest a turd—it seemed the sort of thing that boys with fathers could do to a boy without one—but just as quickly, the sensation vanished. Kostya smacked his lips, trying to call it back, but there was nothing left now, only a warmth spreading slowly across his tongue as he choked back tears. It was only in the absence of the taste that he suddenly recognized what it had been. Chicken liver, sautéed onions, fresh dill garnish, squeeze of lemon. Pechonka. His father's favorite dish, according to his mother, who invoked it infrequently and had stopped making it after he died. Kostya had never tasted pechonka. He just knew, like an instinct, like another sense he'd only now become conscious of, that the ghost of that dish—not its taste, but its aftertaste—had just been inside of his mouth, spirited there by the person who most longed to taste it again. From AFTERTASTE. Copyright © 2025 by Daria Lavelle. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, LLC. Return to the top of page
CBS News
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Club Calvi needs your vote to help choose its next book!
We may receive commissions from some links to products on this page. Promotions are subject to availability and retailer terms. Please consider joining our Facebook group by CLICKING HERE. Find out more about the books below. Which FicPick will get your vote for the next Club Calvi read? You can help decide the next book for Club Calvi! Three new novels are our Top 3 FicPicks, but only one can be the Readers' Choice. Which book would you like to read? In "Sleep" by Honor Jones, a recently divorced mother returns to her childhood home in New Jersey with her daughters. She's forced to confront her childhood trauma and the family secrets she has avoided for much of her life. "Aftertaste" by Daria Lavelle is about a man who can taste the favorite food of ghosts, and reunite them with their loved ones during a meal. His unique palate takes him to New York City's restaurant scene where linking life with afterlife comes with dangerous consequences. In "The Doorman" by Chris Pavone, a doorman stands guard for the famous and wealthy residents of a luxury Upper West Side building where inside drama plays out while outside conflict rages during a day that brings New York City to the brink and may end in murder. Voting closes Sunday, June 1 at 6 p.m. You can read excerpts and get the books below. The CBS New York Book Club focuses on books connected to the Tri-State Area in their plots and/or authors. The books may contain adult themes. CLICK HERE TO VOTE ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ "Sleep" by Honor Jones Riverhead books From the publisher: Every parent exists inside of two families simultaneously – the one she was born into, and the one she has made. Ten-year-old Margaret hides beneath a blackberry bush in her family's verdant backyard while her brother hunts for her in a game of flashlight tag. Hers is a childhood of sunlit swimming pools and Saturday morning pancakes and a devoted best friend, but her family life requires careful maintenance. Her mother can be as brittle and exacting as she is loving, and her father and brother assume familiar, if uncomfortable, models of masculinity. Then late one summer, everything changes. After a series of confusing transgressions, the simple pleasures of girlhood, slip away. Twenty-five years later, Margaret hides under her parents' bed, waiting for her young daughters to find her in a game of hide and seek. She's newly divorced and navigating her life as a co-parent, while discovering the pleasures of a new lover. But some part of her is still under the blackberry bush, punched out of time. Called upon to be a mother to her daughters, and a daughter to her mother, she must reckon with the echoes and refractions between the past and the present, what it means to keep a child safe, and how much of our lives are our own, alone. Honor Jones Lives in Brooklyn. "Sleep" by Honor Jones (ThriftBooks) $21 "Aftertaste" by Daria Lavelle Simon & Schuster From the publisher: Konstantin Duhovny is a haunted man. His father died when he was ten, and ghosts have been hovering around him ever since. Kostya can't exactly see the ghosts, but he can taste their favorite foods. Flavors of meals he's never eaten will flood his mouth, a sign that a spirit is present. Kostya has kept these aftertastes a secret for most of his life, but one night, he decides to act on what he's tasting. And everything changes. Kostya discovers that he can reunite people with their deceased loved ones—at least for the length of time it takes them to eat a dish that he's prepared. He thinks his life's purpose might be to offer closure to grieving strangers, and sets out to learn all he can by entering a particularly fiery ring of Hell: the New York culinary scene. But as his kitchen skills catch up with his ambitions, Kostya is too blind to see the catastrophe looming in the Afterlife. And the one person who knows Kostya must be stopped also happens to be falling in love with him. Daria Lavelle lives in New Jersey. "Aftertaste" By Daria Lavelle (ThriftBooks) $23 "The Doorman" by Chris Pavone MCD/FSG From the publisher: Chicky Diaz is everyone's favorite doorman at the Bohemia, the most famous apartment house in the world, home of celebrities, financiers, and New York's cultural elite. Up in the penthouse, Emily Longworth has the perfect-looking everything, all except her husband, whom she'd quietly loathed even before the recent revelations about where all the money comes from. But his wealth is immense, their prenup is iron-clad, and Emily can't bring herself to leave him. Yet. And downstairs in 2a, Julian Sonnenberg—who has carved himself a successful niche in the art world, and led a good half-century of a full and satisfying, cosmopolitan life—has just received a devastating phone call that does nothing at all to alleviate his sense that, probably for better and worse, he has aged out and he's just not that useful to anyone any more. Meanwhile, gathered in the Bohemia's bowels, the building's almost entirely Black and Hispanic, working-class staff is taking in the news that that just a few miles uptown, a Black man has been killed by the police, leading to a demonstration, a counterdemonstration, and a long night of violence across the tinderbox city. As Chicky changes into his uniform for tonight's shift, he finds himself breaking a cardinal rule of the job: tonight, he'll be carrying a gun, bought only hours earlier, but before he knew of the pandemonium taking over the city. Chicky knows that there's more going on in his patch of sidewalk in front of the Bohemia than anyone's aware of. Tonight in the city, enemies will clash, loyalties will be tested, secrets will be revealed—and lives will be lost. Chris Pavone lives in New York City. "The Doorman" by Chris Pavone (ThriftBooks) $23 Excerpt: "Sleep" by Honor Jones Thursdays were usually Ezra's night, but today was his girlfriend's birthday, so he'd asked Margaret to swap. She was glad to do him a favor, gladder still of the bonus night. She wanted as much time with the girls as possible before they all went to New Jersey for the weekend. She wanted to stamp in their minds that they were her children, that they lived in Brooklyn, that they didn't belong to Elizabeth's house with the marble counters and the swimming pool. At 5:00 she buzzed his building, and before she'd even climbed the first grim stair she could hear her children. "Mommy!" "How was the afternoon?" she asked Ezra. "Jo had that playdate but wouldn't play," he said. Jo and Helen had each wrapped themselves around Margaret's legs, and she was lifting them like heavy shoes. "Jo," Ezra said, "it's rude not to play." "Guys, go get your stuff," Margaret said, as she tried to pry the girls off her legs. They just laughed. "Try to walk, Mommy," they said. Ezra never got them ready to go before she arrived. She wasn't sure if it was because he didn't think to or didn't want to or if it was more intentional—if he liked prolonging this time with her. It was never pleasant; she was never so sweaty and shrill as when she was trying to get her children's shoes on. "Socks and shoes! Socks and shoes! Helen, how many times do I have to say it, put on your socks." Maybe it was somehow helpful to him, seeing her struggle so ineffectually like this. "What's wrong?" he asked her. "Nothing," she said, meaning: this. Ezra was a managing editor at The Really, which he described as a small, tech-focused digital magazine, though in fact it was published by a branch of the PR department of the world's most powerful social media company. In his seven-year tenure, the magazine had cycled through many names: Ikon, Aria, Interrobang. He seemed to spend most of his time in meetings brainstorming new names, or in meetings about best practices for future meetings for brainstorming new names, or in meetings to discuss the demographics of those future meetings and how to ensure that everyone participated equally in the important work of brainstorming new names. Occasionally he worked on an infographic about disinformation. He was paid as much as an entry-level coder, which was to say, far more than she was. She could ask him for child support but didn't want to, and he hadn't offered for the obvious reason that the divorce was her idea. He wore black hoodies and cared about all the right things and was widely admired professionally for being almost entirely egoless. But Margaret had found it frustrating to be dominated by a husband who acted so insistently uninterested in power. When he faded into the background, he expected her to fade too, bundling up her wifely skirts and following him down the dim passageways of self-effacement. Ridiculous to be resentful of that still. This was what came of lingering. What on earth were the girls doing? Helen was lying on the floor coloring. One sock was on one foot. Jo was in the bathroom. "Ezra, can you help with Helen, please?" she asked him, in the fed-up-wife voice she knew he hated. "You don't have to use that voice," he said. "I'm already helping," he said, though he wasn't. "JoJo, what are you doing? We need to go eat dinner." "I want some scream." "What?" "Some scream." She was rooting around in the medicine cabinet. She knocked over a bottle of mouthwash. Band-Aids and hair ties rained down. Margaret was trying but failing to pick things up faster than Jo knocked them down. A jar of antiaging moisturizer clanked into the sink, the overnight evidence of Ezra's girlfriend. Margaret was worried it had cracked, but it hadn't. She picked it up and thought about opening it. She wanted to know what it smelled like. But that would be weird and invasive. She opened it anyway. It smelled good—warm and citrusy, like cream and oranges. She badly wanted to touch it, but that would be weird and invasive and perhaps even, in the girlfriend's eyes, unsanitary. She touched it anyway—stuck just the tip of a finger into the whipped pearlescence. She was happy that Ezra had a girlfriend. Delighted, actually. Though the thought of her—a teacher named Anaya who wrote out grocery lists for elaborate dinners with different-colored gel pens that he persisted in magneting to his refrigerator—did seed a terrible panic that in ten years he would be happily remarried while Margaret would be alone with a vibrator with cat hair sticking to it. "What birthday is it?" she'd asked Ezra, about Anaya's celebration that night. The answer: her thirtieth. Margaret rubbed the cream into the skin between her eyes, into the wrinkle that was forming there. Jo knocked over Ezra's electric razor, and his beard trimmings went everywhere. "Okay, enough, enough," she said. "Jo, stop touching everything." Guiltily, she put her finger back into the cream and smoothed the surface flat, as if covering up a bootprint in the snow. "I'm begging you, go get your socks." "Some scream," Jo said. She was holding up a tube of toothpaste. "She means sunscreen," Helen called from the other room. Ah. "You don't need sunscreen, JoJo," Margaret said, taking the toothpaste from her hand. "The sun is already going down. Shoes and socks!" she said again, in a bright desperate voice. Helen stood in her single sock, taping her picture up against the window. The sky outside was golden with late-day sun, but the light stopped abruptly at the glass. Inside was already beginning the blue evening, shadows padding the corners of the room. On the couch was Ezra, watching her, looking more cheerful than she'd seen him in weeks. "Mommy, come see," Helen said. "I drew a picture of Grandma's house." From Sleep by Honor Jones. Copyright © 2025 by Honor Jones. Excerpted by permission of Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Return to top of page Excerpt: "Aftertaste" by Daria Lavelle BITTER The first time Konstantin Duhovny tasted something he hadn't actually eaten he was eleven, seated on the edge of the public pool in Brighton Beach, his heels churning grey water into foam. He was watching the backs of the other boys—the ones he was supposed to be swimming with, but who never invited him, even out of politeness, into their circle—as they splashed about, showing off handstands and lung capacities, spouting chlorinated water a foot into the air like porpoises. He watched them all afternoon—Mitya and Sasha and Misha K. and Misha B. (whom they kept calling Bear because of the thick, black hair up and down his back)—until, one by one, their fathers finished their waterlogged Russkaya Reklamas, scratched their nipples through threadbare white undershirts, and peeled their pasty bodies from the rubber loungers, signaling quitting time. Kostya had come chaperoned by his cousin Valerik—not his real cousin, but the teenage son of Tetya Natasha, not his real aunt but an acquaintance of his mother's—who had promptly dumped him when his girlfriend whispered something about a kissing booth at the boardwalk nearby. Don't you move, Valerik had hissed at Kostya. I'll be back. That had been two hours ago. As the last boy, Mitya, raised the handle of the chain-link fence, Kostya felt himself blister with jealousy. There was no one to ferry him home, just like there had been no one to slather sunblock onto his back—which he could already feel was red and tight and burnt—and just like there would be no one to teach him how to talk to these boys in a way that made it clear that he was one of them. But then, of course, he wasn't one of them. Their fathers were alive. He kicked faster at the water, kicked violently, kicked at the fathers and sons, kicked at the great cavity of longing inside himself, this way of missing someone, missing them desperately, missing every part including those he'd never known, a pocket so deep he thought that if he could only reach inside of it, worry its lining long enough, break through it to the other side, to where empty could grow full as a belly round with food, he might just find what he was looking for. Right then, something traveled across his tongue, and Kostya stopped kicking. It coated the inside of his mouth, thick as paste, the taste—the uneaten taste—overpowering. It was savory, salty, the texture mealy, slightly sweet and fatty, something tart, barely, and then, at the tail, in the back of his throat, bitter, bitter, blooming like a bruise. Good, but also bad, just a little bit like s***. He wondered briefly whether one of the boys had found a way to make him ingest a turd—it seemed the sort of thing that boys with fathers could do to a boy without one—but just as quickly, the sensation vanished. Kostya smacked his lips, trying to call it back, but there was nothing left now, only a warmth spreading slowly across his tongue as he choked back tears. It was only in the absence of the taste that he suddenly recognized what it had been. Chicken liver, sautéed onions, fresh dill garnish, squeeze of lemon. Pechonka. His father's favorite dish, according to his mother, who invoked it infrequently and had stopped making it after he died. Kostya had never tasted pechonka. He just knew, like an instinct, like another sense he'd only now become conscious of, that the ghost of that dish—not its taste, but its aftertaste—had just been inside of his mouth, spirited there by the person who most longed to taste it again. From AFTERTASTE. Copyright © 2025 by Daria Lavelle. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, LLC. Return to the top of page Excerpt: "The Doorman" by Chris Pavone FRONT DOOR Chicky Diaz stands on his little patch of the earth, the clean quiet sidewalk in front of the Bohemia Apartments, thinking: there sure are a lot of great places to kill someone in this city. There are the sprawling industrial zones in Hunts Point and Maspeth. There are the underpasses of bridges and highways and on-ramps and off-, all those loud echoing voids littered with abandoned vans and homeless camps and piles of trash. There are the late-night-creepy canyons down in the Financial District, and the creepier step streets up in Washington Heights, the ends of elevated subway stations, underground ones too. There are hundreds of miles of waterfront with car-sized boulders and crumbling piers that jut out into the deadly currents of rivers and canals and bays and the mighty Atlantic Ocean. There's that weird-a** auto- repair shantytown out in Willets Point, a place that reminds Chicky of nothing in the States so much as that time he and his buddies took a wrong turn in Panama City. A few wrong turns. There's all of Staten Island, probably, though in truth Chicky has never stepped foot. Just driven through that time with Julio to visit Reggie who was living rough in Rahway. But he's heard. There are the parks, ten thousand acres of hills and woods and beaches and ponds, grass ballfields and concrete courts and golf courses and even a lawn-bowling green of all things, just a few minutes from here. The bowlers wear all white. They basically are all white. Signs at entrances claim park closes at dark but there aren't many gates that close and no attempt at enforcement. Has anyone ever been deterred by a Parks and Rec placard? It's like no spitting, no loitering, no jaywalking. The type of laws that make a mockery of the very idea of laws. No jaywalking. What an idea. The best place to kill someone, though? That's right at home. Away from witnesses and good Samaritans and security cameras, in environments that can be controlled and crime scenes that can be scrubbed, evidence that can be destroyed on the one hand or manufactured on the other. Behind the locked doors and closed curtains of aluminum-sided Capes in Elmhurst or Flatlands, of brownstones up in Harlem and out in Park Slope, of luxury lofts in Tribeca and s***** lofts in Bushwick, of little Tudors out in Forest Hills and huge Tudors up in Riverdale, of slums in the South Bronx and Brownsville, of the housing projects that are everywhere, in every corner of every borough, even places you'd never expect-the Alfred E. Smith Houses just a couple blocks from City Hall, or the ones practically spitting distance from right here. Every class and every race and every religion and every sexual orientation, everybody's every body, shoulder to shoulder. This f****** city. Eight million people. Every one of them can be killed. Chicky looks across to the park's dark that's broken up only by streetlamps along roadways and footpaths. To Chicky these pools of light seem to increase the menace more than lessen it, drawing attention to just how little safety is out there. Even here on fancy Central Park West with fancier Fifth Avenue on the far side, on these streets that are homes to millionaires and billionaires and the biggest museums of the greatest city in the whole wide world. Even here, danger is right over there. This is one of the main reasons Chicky's job exists to begin with. Ensuring safety. Trying to. Chicky has been here for twenty-eight years. Longer than anyone else on staff, longer than most of the residents too. Chicky is who comes to mind when people think of a doorman at the Bohemia, residents and visitors and regular guests, the extended families who descend each Thanksgiving to watch the parade. In all these people's mental dictionaries, the definition of doorman is Chicky Diaz in his spotless uniform and bell crown cap. He's woven into the fabric of the place. The job suits him. Chicky is always quick with a smile or a joke or the door. He never hesitates to grab a bag or hail a cab, to gently shoo away gawkers or panhandlers, to commiserate about the Mets or the Nets or even the godforsaken Jets. Chicky is not a particularly religious man but he does believe in god, and it's obvious that he has forsaken the Jets for some unknowable reason. It seems impossible for any sports franchise to be so bad for so long. Espe- cially a team that plays in a major market. The majorest. And yet. Mysterious ways, they say. Chicky never fails to remember a resident's name or a visiting grandson or a close friend or "friend." He never calls in sick, never leaves early, never arrives late. He never complains or rolls his eyes at a ridiculous request, of which there are plenty. He is unerringly patient and unfailingly nice. He is relentlessly upbeat. Or he was. On the next block a tiny old woman is walking a tiny dog, both miniatures. But otherwise there's nothing but red traffic lights and red taillights and a red light at the end of an awning to beckon a yellow cab. Good luck, this day and age. Taxis don't roam like they used to. Somewhere a car guns its engine in a way that sounds hostile. Chicky feels a tingle on the back of his clean-cut neck. Every place to kill someone is also, obviously, a place to get killed. It can happen out on the sidewalk in a hail of automatic gunfire, the murder attempt of a coward who's sitting safely in the passenger side, random bullets hitting thighs and butts and arms but mostly trash cans and windows and innocent passersby. Sometimes little kids, babies. It's surprising how many gunshot targets manage to survive the indiscriminate spray. Not the one well-placed bullet to the head. No one survives that. But that requires a whole different set of balls. To walk right up to a guy, maybe even look him in the eye, boom. It can happen at any moment, anywhere, to anyone. Right here, right now. You might never know that you're about to get killed. You might never know that you're about to kill someone. Chicky sure as f*** hadn't. The Doorman by Chris Pavone. Published by MCD x FSG, May 20, 2025. Copyright © 2025 by Chris Pavone. All rights reserved. Return to top of page
CBS News
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Author Annabel Monaghan's new romance novel kicks off Club Calvi's unofficial start of summer
We may receive commissions from some links to products on this page. Promotions are subject to availability and retailer terms. Please consider joining our Facebook group by CLICKING HERE. Find out more about the books below. The unofficial start of summer means a new book by Annabel Monaghan. Every year since 2022, she's released a new romance that would top lists for the best reads -- including Club Calvi's. Mary Calvi talked to Monaghan about her new book "It's a Love Story." "Jane Jackson is a former teen star," Monaghan said. "She is finally, as an adult, trying to be taken seriously in Hollywood. She is about to get her first project greenlit when the whole thing starts to fall apart and she tells a terrible lie to buy herself a little bit of time. She ends up having to rely on this one guy who she almost dated, and then it all fell apart, and who she now cannot stand, to help make it happen." Monaghan is known for creating relatable characters with vulnerabilities. Jane grew up on television. "I thought a lot about that, what it would be like to go through puberty on TV, and to be told where to stand and what to say," Monaghan said. "She's a person who grew up really not knowing anything about herself. She's an adult that's very disconnected. She was very fun to write. She has this sense of unworthiness that she needs to work through." Jane must partner with Dan Finnegan, who grew up in a big, boisterous family on Long Island. Monahan describes him as the most quiet of the men she has ever written. "He's just very self-assured," Monaghan said. "He knows who he is creatively. He knows who he is personally. And he is sort of the black sheep of his family, and he's perfectly fine with it. He's a nice foil to Jane who is not fine with anything." Monaghan says she put elements of her own marriage, and what she has learned about love, into "It's a Love Story." "I am married to a quiet man for almost 30 years now," Monaghan told Calvi. "I realized that when I was fantasizing about this big love, I always thought it was going to be like the end of a romcom with somebody showing up on a parade with a big ring. As it turns out, long-term love is just quiet. It's little moments. It's breakfast. It's walking the dog. It's just showing up for each other in smaller ways. I tried to work that into this story." You can read an excerpt, and purchase the book, below. The CBS New York Book Club focuses on books connected to the Tri-State Area in their plots and/or authors. The books may contain adult themes. Putnam ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ "It's a Love Story" by Annabel Monaghan From the publisher: Love is a lie. Laughter is the only truth. Jane Jackson spent her adolescence as "Poor Janey Jakes," the barbecue-sauce-in-her-braces punch line on America's fifth-favorite sitcom. Now she's trying to be taken seriously as a Hollywood studio executive by embracing a new mantra: Fake it till you make it. Except she might have faked it too far. Desperate to get her first project greenlit and riled up by pompous cinematographer and one-time crush Dan Finnegan, she claimed that she could get mega popstar Jack Quinlan to write a song for the movie. Jack may have been her first kiss-and greatest source of shame-but she hasn't spoken to him in twenty years. Now Jane must turn to the last man she'd ever want to owe: Dan Finnegan. Because Jack is playing a festival in Dan's hometown, and Dan has an in. A week in close quarters with Dan as she faces down her past is Jane's idea of hell, but he just might surprise her. While covering up her lie, can they find something true? Annabel Monaghan lives in Connecticut. "It's a Love Story" by Annabel Monaghan (ThriftBooks) $16 Excerpt: "It's A Love Story" by Annabel Monaghan I pull out of my driveway, turn on the radio, and it's Jack Quinlan playing his number four single, "By My Side." I change the station, and it's Jack Quinlan playing his number two single, "Purple." I switch to a reliably country station and, you guessed it, Jack Quinlan. I turn off the radio. I knew Jack when we were teenagers. The whole thing was embarrassing. This wouldn't be such a big deal if we weren't two people who started our careers in the same spot and only one of us is a recently minted megastar. The other one, incidentally, is me. I have it in my head that by my age I should be doing whatever my forever is going to be. Making big career strides with a partner by my side. I should have a pet. I thought by now I'd know Spielberg and how to use my oven. I arrive at the office before nine o'clock. The lobby is nearly empty, and I have the sense that this place is entirely mine. Pantheon Television, where I spent my adolescence on camera accidentally sitting on nachos, is a half mile away, but inside this building, I'm an executive, calling the shots. I am not told where to stand or how to act. I am a decision-maker. I check the integrity of the square knot on my dress and then say it out loud: "Decision-maker." The elevator doors open, and no. No, no, not today. Not when I'm about to turn literally every single thing around. "Good morning, Jane," he says. "Don't jinx me. Just press twelve. No, I'll do it. Don't touch anything." I am supremely agitated. It's stupid Dan Finnegan, with his mop of black hair, presumably coming up from the underground parking where he's crushed his clove cigarette next to his unicycle. Of course it's freakin' Dan Finnegan. I have no proof that he travels by unicycle, but he's the kind of above-it-all, know-it-all jerk who probably pays up for cruelty-free cashew butter and then blogs about it. I've seen him around the studio, of course, since he called my last project "trash" and set in motion the events that would have it murdered, dead on the floor. He thinks I'm a little unhinged, so he puts his hands up when he sees me, in mock fear of an outburst. Oh, it's hilarious all right. "I know not to make any sudden moves," he says, eyes straight ahead. "Good one," I say. "You're here early," he says. He's wearing khaki pants and a white shirt, untucked. Untucked and unbrushed are worse than unhinged, if you ask me. "Yes, big day," I say and gesture to my dress. I don't know why I've done this. This small gesture with my hand has opened up the door for me to tell him that I have a new script. I don't want Dan anywhere near it, but I also want to rub it in his face. "I have a new project." "Another think piece?" I refuse to look his way, but I can feel a little smile off of him. Now I'm rolling my eyes. "It's going to be the film of the year." "I'm sure." The elevator stops on the twelfth floor, and he steps forward and holds the door open for me. His navy blue eyes are disarming every time. All of his features are, as if a sixteenth-century sculptor with a too-sharp chisel arranged them on his face. But it's the eyes, wide under his black brows, that have the intensity to match his arrogance. "No one wants to watch two people who they don't care about fall in love for absolutely no reason." He's just so superior with his omniscience about what everyone wants and doesn't want. He was so casual about crushing my first real project like it was a gas station receipt. So I step out of the elevator, turn back to him, and spill it. "It's funny and offbeat, with oddball characters. But more than that." I don't know why I'm selling this to him. The elevator door starts to close and he stops it with his sneaker. "Wait. True Story?" "No," I say. If you could throw a word at a person, I would have shot-putted this one at his chest. "No, it's not True Story?" "No. I mean yes. But not you." My hands ball up, all on their own accord, as Dan steps off the elevator and lets the doors close behind him. "Yes, me," he says. "Jane, I'm meeting with Nathan about this at nine. He wants me as cinematographer, and I need it." "You need it," I say, my voice has gone jagged. "This is about you now? Just trying to get all the facts straight." "We both probably need it. But I don't hate this script. In fact, I can see it, in my mind, exactly how it should be." The movie I've been imagining as I fall asleep is the same one he's been imagining, but probably with weird lighting and subtitles and whatever arty stuff wins awards and sells absolutely no tickets. He presses the button and the doors open. "If you can just act like a normal person, we can make this movie." I am a normal person. In fact, I'm so normal that I don't scream those words at him. There's nothing that makes a person act more insane than trying to prove how sane they actually are. I have a little sweat beading up on my chest now and I really need to calm down. "This cannot be happening," I say as the elevator doors close between us. From It's a Love Story by Annabel Monaghan, published by Putnam, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2025 by Annabel Monaghan Return to top of page
CBS News
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Readers vote "Didn't You Used To Be Queenie B?" as the new book for Club Calvi!
Please consider joining our Facebook group by CLICKING HERE . Find out more about the books below. Club Calvi has a new book! You voted "Didn't You Used To Be Queenie B?" by Terri-Lynne DeFino as the Readers' Choice. In a video to readers, DeFino described her book as a recipe for redemption. "Take a celebrity chef hiding out in New Haven, Connecticut," she said. "Add a talented line cook struggling with addiction. Fold in a pinch of regret, a generous dash of penance, and a tablespoon of hope. Then whisk it all together into a cooking competition offering them both a second chance." You can read an excerpt below, and get your copy of the book to read along with Club Calvi over the next four weeks. Please join our Facebook group to participate in our discussions. The CBS New York Book Club focuses on books connected to the Tri-State Area in their plots and/or authors. The books may contain adult themes. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ From the publisher: Regina Benuzzi is Queenie B—a culinary goddess with Michelin Star restaurants, a bestselling cookbook empire, and multimillion-dollar TV deals. It doesn't hurt that she's gorgeous and curvaceous, with cascading black hair and signature red lips. She had it all. Until she didn't. After an epic fall from grace, Queenie B vanishes from the public eye, giving up everything: her husband, her son, and the fame that she'd fought to achieve. Her shows are in rerun, her restaurants still popular, but her disappearance remains a mystery to her legions of fans. Local line cook Gale Carmichael also knows a thing or two about disaster. Newly sober and struggling, Gale's future dreams don't hold space for culinary stardom; only earning enough to get by. Broke at the end of the week, he finds himself at a local soup kitchen in one of the roughest parts of New Haven, Connecticut. But Gale quickly realizes that the food coming out of the kitchen is not your standard free meal—it is delicious and prepared with gourmet flair. Gale doesn't recognize Regina, the soup kitchen's cranky proprietor, whose famous black mane is now streaked with gray. It's been more than ten years since Queenie B vanished into her careful new existence. But she sees Gale's talent and recognizes a brokenness in him that she knows all too well. The culinary genius in hiding takes him under her wing. Teaching Gale, Regina's passion to create is reignited, and they both glimpse a shot at the redemption that had always seemed out of reach. When Gale is chosen to compete on the hit cooking show, Cut!, i t's a turning point for them both. It's Gale's time to shine. And that means Queenie B might just have to come out of hiding… Terri-Lynne DeFino lives in Connecticut. "Didn't You Used To Be Queenie B?" by Terri-Lynne DeFino (ThriftBooks) $23 Osvaldo is an a******. She's done as he asked; not a drink or a snort or a pill all week. This week, of all weeks! Just so he and Julian would be at her side in her triumph. Didn't that count for anything? It was only three shots. Maybe four. If he can't cut her a small break, then f*** him. How the hell is she supposed to cope when every moment, from opening ceremony to the awards, rides on her shoulders. She has to be witty and sage and beautiful, all at the same time. Everyone wants a piece of her, and she has to give it to them or fade away like every other has-been in this business. This festival is everything. Everything! A new, more dignified stage of her career. The great Queenie B is back on her game. With the success of the festival, after last year's horror, she can slow down, maybe even let go of one of her shows. PBS has been trying to make changes she is unhappy with, anyway. Co-host? No way. Osvaldo doesn't have to take Julian and go, her beautiful boy crying, arms outstretched, right there in front of everyone. But he does, just to spite her. To punish her. Their friends, colleagues, all those wannabees pretending to be thrilled at seeing the two of them together again are now snickering as she stands on the steps of the stage. Waiting for her cue. No Oz. No Julian. Just Queenie B. She doesn't make a scene. Queenie blows a kiss, as if Osvaldo is only taking their over-tired, special needs child out of a stressful situation. He'll go along with the story, once he hears it. He doesn't want the bad publicity any more than she does. But he won't let her see Julian again, damn him. As if he has the right to keep her from her child. Which he does, according to the court orders. "Queenie?" She shakes herself out of it, shoulders back and chin up. Her heels are high, the steps are wobbly, and she's not exactly sober, but she nods to the kid wearing the headset and holding the clipboard. He points to the woman on the stage. Linda? No, Lydia. The woman PBS wants as her co-host. Lydia steps closer to the microphone. "Few of us in the culinary world are recognized outside of it. We are big fish in small ponds, but!" She raises a finger. "Our pond is getting bigger." Laughter. A few whoops. Applause. Lydia waits. She knows how to work an audience, Queenie will give her that. "We all owe a huge debt to our keynote speaker. Not only a brilliant chef, but a charismatic woman who has been instrumental in elevating our art to celebrity status. The two-thousands will usher in amazing things for the culinary world, for all of us. And we owe it in great part to our own, our magnificent, Queenie B!" The applause. It is dizzying. Queenie climbs the steps, the headset-kid giving her a hand. She looks amazing in her Zac Posen gown; her long hair drapes like an accessory. Her signature smile, the one made into a logo for both her shows, on cookbooks, menus, and personal stationary, sparkles in the spotlights more brilliantly than diamonds. It feeds her, this adulation. It proves them all wrong. Every relative and foster family who gave her back. Every smack and kick and curse aimed to break her. This moment validates everything. Almost everything. Queenie takes her place center stage, waiting. Basking. A pair of attractive, young men approach from the left. Unfolding the crisp, black chef coat they carry between them, they wait on either side of her. To slip her arms into the sleeves. To cover the designer gown with the one item of clothing worn by every chef, from the prep cooks to Queenie B herself. Arms raised over her head, she listens to the roar. Then she lowers her arms, lowers her head, and takes the bow they're all waiting for. The bow she has f****** earned. From DIDN'T YOU USE TO BE QUEENIE B? by Terri-Lynne DeFino. Copyright © 2025 by Terri-Lynne DeFino. Reprinted by permission of William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Return to top of page
CBS News
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Vote now to decide which Top 3 FicPick will be the next book for Club Calvi!
Please consider joining our Facebook group by CLICKING HERE . Find out more about the books below. Club Calvi needs a new book and it's asking you to vote on which Top 3 FicPick should be the Readers' Choice. "Didn't You Used To Be Queenie B?" by Terri-Lynne DeFino is a story of second chances for a disgraced celebrity chef and a young cook who meet in a soup kitchen. "Zeal" by Morgan Jerkins explores how the power of love unites star-crossed lovers during slavery in the south to a young couple in modern-day New York. "The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits" by Jennifer Weiner is about pop-star sisters, the secret that drove them apart, and how the separation affects their family decades later. You can read excerpts and buy the books below. Voting closes Sunday, April 20th at 6 p.m. CLICK HERE to cast your vote. The CBS New York Book Club focuses on books connected to the Tri-State Area in their plots and/or authors. The books may contain adult themes. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ From the publisher: Regina Benuzzi is Queenie B—a culinary goddess with Michelin Star restaurants, a bestselling cookbook empire, and multimillion-dollar TV deals. It doesn't hurt that she's gorgeous and curvaceous, with cascading black hair and signature red lips. She had it all. Until she didn't. After an epic fall from grace, Queenie B vanishes from the public eye, giving up everything: her husband, her son, and the fame that she'd fought to achieve. Her shows are in rerun, her restaurants still popular, but her disappearance remains a mystery to her legions of fans. Local line cook Gale Carmichael also knows a thing or two about disaster. Newly sober and struggling, Gale's future dreams don't hold space for culinary stardom; only earning enough to get by. Broke at the end of the week, he finds himself at a local soup kitchen in one of the roughest parts of New Haven, Connecticut. But Gale quickly realizes that the food coming out of the kitchen is not your standard free meal—it is delicious and prepared with gourmet flair. Gale doesn't recognize Regina, the soup kitchen's cranky proprietor, whose famous black mane is now streaked with gray. It's been more than ten years since Queenie B vanished into her careful new existence. But she sees Gale's talent and recognizes a brokenness in him that she knows all too well. The culinary genius in hiding takes him under her wing. Teaching Gale, Regina's passion to create is reignited, and they both glimpse a shot at the redemption that had always seemed out of reach. When Gale is chosen to compete on the hit cooking show, Cut!, i t's a turning point for them both. It's Gale's time to shine. And that means Queenie B might just have to come out of hiding… Terri-Lynne DeFino lives in Connecticut. "Didn't You Used To Be Queenie B?" by Terri-Lynne DeFino (ThriftBooks) $23 From the publisher: Harlem, 2019. Ardelia and Oliver are hosting their engagement party. As the guests get ready to leave, he hands her a love letter on a yellowing, crumbling piece of paper . . . Natchez, 1865. Discharged from the Union Army as a free man after the war's end, Harrison returns to Mississippi to reunite with the woman he loves, Tirzah. Upon his arrival at the Freedmen's Bureau, though, he catches the eye of a woman working there, who's determined to thwart his efforts to find his beloved. After tragedy strikes, Harrison resigns himself to a life with her. Meanwhile in Louisiana, the newly free Tirzah is teaching at a freedmen's school, and discovers an advertisement in the local paper looking for her. Though she knows Harrison must have placed it, and longs to find him, the risks of fleeing are too great, and Tirzah chooses the life of seeming security right in front of her. Spanning over a hundred and fifty years, Morgan Jerkins's extraordinary novel intertwines the stories of these star-crossed lovers and their descendants. As Tirzah's family moves across the country during the Great Migration, they challenge authority with devastating consequences, while of the legacy of heartbreak and loss continues on in the lives of Harrison's progeny. When Ardelia meets Oliver, she finds his family's history is as full of secrets and omissions as her own. Could their connection be a cosmic reconciliation satisfying the unfulfilled desires of their ancestors, or will the weight of the past, present and future tear them apart? Morgan Jerkins lives in Brooklyn. CLICK HERE to read an excerpt "Zeal" By Morgan Jerkins (ThriftBooks) $23 From the publisher: Cassie and Zoe Grossberg were thrust into the spotlight as The Griffin Sisters, a pop duo that defined the aughts. Together, they skyrocketed to the top, gracing MTV, SNL, and the cover of Rolling Stone . Cassie, a musical genius who never felt at ease in her own skin, preferred to stay in the shadows. Zoe, full of confidence and craving fame, lived for the stage. But fame has a price, and after one turbulent year, the band abruptly broke up. Now, two decades later, the sisters couldn't be further apart. Zoe is a suburban mom warning her daughter Cherry to avoid the spotlight, while Cassie has disappeared from public life entirely. But when Cherry begins unearthing the truth behind their breathtaking rise and infamous breakup, long-buried secrets surface, forcing all three women to confront their choices, their desires, and their complicated bonds. Jennifer Weiner lives in Philadelphia. "The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits" by Jennifer Weiner (ThriftBooks) $23 Osvaldo is an a******. She's done as he asked; not a drink or a snort or a pill all week. This week, of all weeks! Just so he and Julian would be at her side in her triumph. Didn't that count for anything? It was only three shots. Maybe four. If he can't cut her a small break, then f*** him. How the hell is she supposed to cope when every moment, from opening ceremony to the awards, rides on her shoulders. She has to be witty and sage and beautiful, all at the same time. Everyone wants a piece of her, and she has to give it to them or fade away like every other has-been in this business. This festival is everything. Everything! A new, more dignified stage of her career. The great Queenie B is back on her game. With the success of the festival, after last year's horror, she can slow down, maybe even let go of one of her shows. PBS has been trying to make changes she is unhappy with, anyway. Co-host? No way. Osvaldo doesn't have to take Julian and go, her beautiful boy crying, arms outstretched, right there in front of everyone. But he does, just to spite her. To punish her. Their friends, colleagues, all those wannabees pretending to be thrilled at seeing the two of them together again are now snickering as she stands on the steps of the stage. Waiting for her cue. No Oz. No Julian. Just Queenie B. She doesn't make a scene. Queenie blows a kiss, as if Osvaldo is only taking their over-tired, special needs child out of a stressful situation. He'll go along with the story, once he hears it. He doesn't want the bad publicity any more than she does. But he won't let her see Julian again, damn him. As if he has the right to keep her from her child. Which he does, according to the court orders. "Queenie?" She shakes herself out of it, shoulders back and chin up. Her heels are high, the steps are wobbly, and she's not exactly sober, but she nods to the kid wearing the headset and holding the clipboard. He points to the woman on the stage. Linda? No, Lydia. The woman PBS wants as her co-host. Lydia steps closer to the microphone. "Few of us in the culinary world are recognized outside of it. We are big fish in small ponds, but!" She raises a finger. "Our pond is getting bigger." Laughter. A few whoops. Applause. Lydia waits. She knows how to work an audience, Queenie will give her that. "We all owe a huge debt to our keynote speaker. Not only a brilliant chef, but a charismatic woman who has been instrumental in elevating our art to celebrity status. The two-thousands will usher in amazing things for the culinary world, for all of us. And we owe it in great part to our own, our magnificent, Queenie B!" The applause. It is dizzying. Queenie climbs the steps, the headset-kid giving her a hand. She looks amazing in her Zac Posen gown; her long hair drapes like an accessory. Her signature smile, the one made into a logo for both her shows, on cookbooks, menus, and personal stationary, sparkles in the spotlights more brilliantly than diamonds. It feeds her, this adulation. It proves them all wrong. Every relative and foster family who gave her back. Every smack and kick and curse aimed to break her. This moment validates everything. Almost everything. Queenie takes her place center stage, waiting. Basking. A pair of attractive, young men approach from the left. Unfolding the crisp, black chef coat they carry between them, they wait on either side of her. To slip her arms into the sleeves. To cover the designer gown with the one item of clothing worn by every chef, from the prep cooks to Queenie B herself. Arms raised over her head, she listens to the roar. Then she lowers her arms, lowers her head, and takes the bow they're all waiting for. The bow she has f****** earned. From DIDN'T YOU USE TO BE QUEENIE B? by Terri-Lynne DeFino. Copyright © 2025 by Terri-Lynne DeFino. Reprinted by permission of William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Return to top of page She was gone. Harrison returned to Natchez after the war, and she was gone, breaking her promise. Tirzah, the love of his life and the ember in the dark nights of his soul. Two years and twelve days before, Harrison and his beloved had stood within a grove of magnolia trees on the grounds of the Phoenician Estate to say their goodbyes. She was crying so hard that Harrison had to hold her waist so she wouldn't collapse. And he, sweaty with a dirt-caked face, had asked her to wait for him until the war was over. No matter if they were free people or still slaves, he would be coming back for her. She shook her head until her curls flopped over her face and wondered aloud why he wanted to fight a battle they would never win. Before he could answer, one of the Union officers called for him to get moving and Harrison had to let her go. He had never felt a pain so deeply wedged in his chest as in the moment he left the Phoenician. But he had to get away. He hated being who he was now that he was in love. He hated how he could not defend his beloved from the danger of being in the main house under the lustful eye of their owner's son, Spencer. Going off to war, he resolved, he would defend her, himself, and all slaves, and come back to Natchez with pride. But the Natchez he left, with all its stunning wealth, was not the same one to which he returned. As he and his fellow soldiers rode their horses on a trail alongside the Mississippi approaching the city, they saw that all the levees had been destroyed. With each step closer to their destination, the smell of festering animal carcasses became stronger. Weeds and swampland had swallowed up fields upon fields of cotton. When his regiment arrived at the area underneath the bluffs, they found it eerily still. They passed by a well-known wood mill and a large plantation and garden—the only one of its kind below the hill. Before he'd left, at least a half dozen negroes would be tending to the property at a given time, and now there were none. Hardly anyone was mixing in the street, besides a few negroes here and there. There were no steamboats. No sound of foghorns or carriage wheels bumping along the principal street. The relative quietness bothered him. Harrison had to fight to smother the thoughts of the absences of many people being a bad omen. "You still thinkin' 'bout dat lady, ain't ya?" a fellow soldier asked, catching Harrison's line of sight to a trail where one could ascend the hill to the city proper. "Still thinkin'," Harrison replied. "I finna take my horse up dere right nah so dat I don' waste anotha second." "You needa give dat horse a rest first. 'N by de way, what makes you think dat she gon' even be dere? Look around you." Harrison made a soft noise of disapproval and steered his horse away from the rest of the group, embarking on his own path. "You needa go 'n get you a nice one to lay up wit for all dat hard work you put in!" another soldier yelled out. Harrison squeezed his thighs around his horse until he couldn't hear his comrades any longer. The horse's trot widened into a full-speed gallop as they scaled the bluffs and made their way to Natchez proper, where all the most spectacular plantations sat high. Cows and pigs decomposed along the trodden path, but Harrison was undeterred by the carnage. He knew his way. The Phoenician was only about three miles west of the town cemetery and a hospital, two structures that were still intact when he passed, but what Harrison saw next made him instruct his horse to slow. The plantation next to the Phoenician had been desecrated. Weeds grew like outstretched hands over columns and window panels. Acres of azaleas, wildflowers, crape myrtles, and roses had wilted, been trampled upon, or shriveled up and died. When he finally arrived at the Phoenician's entrance gates, which appeared to have been broken, he slowly dismounted from his horse and took off his hat when his boots touched soil. He stood in front of the grand expanse of his former home and closed his eyes. A cacophony of noise overtook his mind—overseers barking orders, mournful cries, music, laughter, exhausted panting. He allowed his lids to flutter open, expecting to see what he'd dreamt more than once, tossing in his disease-ridden barracks: Spencer Ambrose kneeling in agony over his lost labor, slaves dropping their cotton to dance, Tirzah running out of the main house and into his arms. But there was no one in sight. Unconvinced that he was truly alone, Harrison walked farther into the property. Flowers that slaves had maintained so beautifully lay limp on the brown patches of grass. The roof that Harrison had worked in the blistering heat to maintain was showing signs of rot, which also explained the faint smells of animal droppings and urine; the Phoenician must be overrun with pests. Everyone really was gone, Harrison thought, because there could be no other reason why the grand estate, once home to more than a hundred slaves at a time, had reached this level of devastation. He stood underneath the main house's now-cracked pillars and inhaled deeply, hoping to detect a whiff of Tirzah's cooking, only to have the smell of gunpowder and blood irritate his nose. He circled around to the slave cabins, where a single chair rocked mysteriously on one of the small porches. Thinking that one of his old friends must still be around, Harrison put his fingers in his mouth and blew a whistle. "Hey! C'mon out dere! Did ya hear de news? We free!" Not a single door swung open. No quick pacing of feet racing to see what was going on. No jubilant cries out to the Lord for finally bringing them out of their Egypt. He made his way back around to the main house, planning another circle. While he was reminding himself that the possibility of seeing Tirzah again was worth returning to the place he had dreamt so often of leaving, he felt something small and smooth underneath his right foot. He lifted his heel to see an oxblood-colored wallet with the letter T emblazoned upon it, and dropped to his knees. Seven and a half by three and a half inches with a bunch of pockets to stow whatever her heart desired. A guttural wail climbed out from the depths of his belly and shook the birds clean from their nests in the trees. The wallet was a gift he had given to Tirzah one Christmas Eve. That T, in a golden garland motif, was the first letter he had learned to write, the first letter he requested that she teach him in their secret nightly meetings. Had he taken too long, or had she given up too soon? Either way, she really was gone. From ZEAL by Morgan Jerkins. Copyright © 2025 by Morgan Jerkins. Excerpted by permission of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Return to the top of page Prologue DETROIT, 2004 I never should have touched you," Russell D'Angelo says to the empty room. He twists the lock, toes off his cowboy boots, and leans his fore- head against the hotel-room door, against the framed placard. He's too close to read the emergency evacuation routes it details, even if his eyes weren't blurry with tears. He pinches the bridge of his nose, hard. This is an emergency, the worst he's ever been in, and knowing how to exit the building safely won't help. He is thinking about how she looked, about what he'd said. I never meant for this to happen , he'd told her as she'd glared at him from the hallway, her face shocked and pale and heartbroken. He'd kept talking, hating the pleading sound of his voice. I'm sorry. Russell shakes his head to stop the thoughts. Three paces bring him to the bar cart. He unscrews the cap of the whiskey bottle and lifts it to his mouth, welcoming the burn of the liquor. His eyes are closed, but he can still see them both. Two sets of eyes, two faces, turned toward his. Different faces, but with the same shape to their lips, the same slope of their cheeks. Two women, waiting for an answer Russell didn't have. "I'm an idiot," he tells the room. And it's true. He hadn't even no- ticed what was happening until it was too late. It wasn't until he was standing in front of an officiant, thirty of their closest friends, three hundred fellow celebrities, and a photographer from People magazine that he'd looked over his bride's shoulder and caught her sister's eyes, and the knowledge of the mistake that he was making hit him like a punch to the breastbone, rattling his heart. "I do," he'd said. I'm fucked , he'd thought. And from that moment on, a part of him has been wait- ing, counting down toward this place and this night. You have to choose , she'd told him . Except there isn't a choice here. Not really. Not at all. Twenty minutes later, half the whiskey is gone, and Russell's lean- ing heavily against the wall, looking blearily around the room. His eyes move from object to object without seeing. There's the bed, still made. His suitcase, open on the luggage stand, clothes spilling out from its unzipped top—his jeans and tee shirt, the silly leather pants the stylist insists on because he's the lead guitar player in what is, currently, one of the most successful bands in the country, and leather pants are what cute boys in hot bands are required to wear. There might even be a law about it. "I never should have touched you," Russell says again. He hums a handful of notes in a minor key and decides to write the words down. Moving carefully, deliberately in his inebriation, he locates the tiny pad of hotel stationery and a pen, and writes with care, imagining piano chords, a mournful twangy guitar. Maybe the words will be the backbone of a chorus, the way into a song, he thinks. And then remembers what he's done, and how that door is closed. There will be no more songs for him. He bends to collect his boots, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull them on before walking out into the hall. It's the middle of the night. It's quiet, and all the doors are closed. Nobody sees him as he walks through the lobby, bootheels clicking. Nobody sees as he pushes the heavy glass doors open and steps out into the cold and the dark. Excerpted from the book THE GRIFFIN SISTERS GREATEST HITS by Jennifer Weiner. Copyright © 2025 by Jennifer Weiner. From William Morrow books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission. Return to top of page
